Abstract

Ms Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 271 contains the first ten parts of Henry Bate's Speculum divinormu et quorundam naturalium. Some peculiarities of the codex suggest that the copyist came to a sudden stop, leaving the work unfinished. Dr. F. Lyna, who carefully examined the illumination on F. 4 r of the manuscript, came to the conclusion that it must certainly date from before 1425 and probably from about 1400. It belonged to the library of St Martensdaal at Louvain till the french revolution. The catalogue of Roklooster , 9373 — The main part of this catalogue consists in a list of authors, a small biography of each of them, the complete titles of the works and the Dutch libraries where they were kept) reveals that St Martensdaal possessed it already before 1487, since the compilator made use of a similar catalogue of that very year by G. Roelants, canon of St Martensdaal. The marginalia, which were undoubtedly added by Nicholas of Cusa, constitute another peculiarity of this manuscript. The handwriting is definitely identical with that of Nicholas' autographs and the contents betray the same preoccupations even to minor details. In his Apologia doctae ignoranttae Nicholas of Cusa obviously repeats the marginal note of the manuscript, part VI c. 21 and quotes the corresponding text of Henry Bate. According to an earlier study of R. Klibansky this is characteristic of Nicholas' method of working. This makes it highly probable that the manuscript did not come into possession of St Martensdaal until after 1449. How it got there we do not know. The identification of the marginals in Ms 271 led to the discovery of additional marginal notes, belonging to Nicholas of Cusa, in five more manuscripts of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in Brussels. One of them belonged to Heymeric Van de Velde : 11479-84 Fol. 59-65. The other four bear the mark of the library of the hospital of Cues : 3819-20, 9581-95, 10615-10729, 11196-97